I just subscribed to this mod. It sounds really good, and I'll check it out. My main issues with the game have been the poor AI and balancing issues that this mod addresses.

Adm. Tech. 10 gives NOTHING. Literally, absolutely nothing. Maybe rearrange some stuff so it gives at least Gov. Cap. and production efficiency?

Originally posted by see two:

Adm. Tech. 10 gives NOTHING. Literally, absolutely nothing. Maybe rearrange some stuff so it gives at least Gov. Cap. and production efficiency?

will change that in next update

I love the general changes (trade map, ideas). Workwise great job, no issues/crashes.

However, I have 2 points:
1. Could you please provide more info regarding scaling difficulty over time? Basic bonuses for AI on VH for example are much lower even than vanilla which is strange to see. So far both my starts were very easy and I would say more boring than vanilla as I managed to grow rapidly. Before I start another long game I would like to know how strong will the AI be in late game; i.e. what bonuses will the AI get per age.

2. You mentioned in comments recently that VH should be way more aggressive than Xorme but I tried both mods and even H Xorme is ridiculously expansive to the point I don't like that. Difficulty & AI even on VH is only slightly more aggressive than vanilla (based on my 2 games for +- 100 years). As I've never used your mod before I have no idea if you changed AI settings and lower aggressiveness or just Xorme became way more aggressive. So just to let you know if you aimed for aggressive AI you should probably ramp it up a little bit.

Originally posted by Deathcarrier:

I love the general changes (trade map, ideas). Workwise great job, no issues/crashes.

However, I have 2 points:
1. Could you please provide more info regarding scaling difficulty over time? Basic bonuses for AI on VH for example are much lower even than vanilla which is strange to see. So far both my starts were very easy and I would say more boring than vanilla as I managed to grow rapidly. Before I start another long game I would like to know how strong will the AI be in late game; i.e. what bonuses will the AI get per age.

2. You mentioned in comments recently that VH should be way more aggressive than Xorme but I tried both mods and even H Xorme is ridiculously expansive to the point I don't like that. Difficulty & AI even on VH is only slightly more aggressive than vanilla (based on my 2 games for +- 100 years). As I've never used your mod before I have no idea if you changed AI settings and lower aggressiveness or just Xorme became way more aggressive. So just to let you know if you aimed for aggressive AI you should probably ramp it up a little bit.

Regarding scaling difficulty, In the age of discovery it's:
1 Free military policy
-10 % Advisor cost
And Free War taxes

In age of revolution it scales to:
2 Free military policy.
-10% Build Cost
-10% All power cost
-25% Advisor cost
+15% To both Naval and Land Force Limit
And Free War taxes

Free military policy is there to make sure AI will use more than 1 military policy. All power cost is imo is not that strong on AI, as AI is very inefficient with its monarch point usage.

Last time I checked Xorme he had a slightly lower AI aggressiveness setting than my VH, that might’ve changed. I’m also not sure what kind of AI bonuses and scripts are in Xorme. For example AE reduction, CCR, province cost, all of that can influence AI expansion rate quite a bit.
Speaking from my playtests in this patch on Hard with Scaling Difficulty I was chain deced by Commonwealth as Sweden and even lost initial war. Depending on what tag are you playing the start can be very easy even on Very Hard. Altho there should be more AI Empires that are doing well past 100 years.

If you noticed something in particular that helped you to gain a significant advantage over AI, that would be a great help.

Your quick reply is very appreciated ;) I should have asked the first time to be sure - is enabling all difficulty settings (scaling, deving etc.) the right way to play your mod? Do all of these settings increase AI efficiency? My info is based on VH+lucky nations with all options enabled.

If you don't have time skip the following and please just answer the question above.

Since vanilla VH gives mighty +50% force limit and your setting is 15% from start and only very late in the game another 15%, it's still only 30% in total. Maybe it's because I'm so used to +50% that it feels kinda easy. I might be wrong because of other changes you made to AI, but when I put VH settings side by side, vanilla has in general much better bonuses for AI than your mod. Free military policy sounds great, but my last attempt was as France and all my nearby threats had defensive with exploration (Castile and Portugal) or Innovative (England). Related military policies are very weak and half of defensive's policies are not military at all so even later they would probably not play important role. Sure, France is quite easy (I wanted to try colonial empire with Bordeaux end node), but it took me only 50 years to be dominant. I could be very lucky but I also missed 2 strong PUs cause I was waging wars with HAB and didn't see a reason to wait as I was strong enough already. From my point of view VH is, well, not very hard compared to vanilla that got pretty good improvements in the last DLC (much better buildings priorities, economy etc.). I would welcome bigger starting bonuses to AI, because right now VH feels like vanilla H or somewhere in between H and VH. AI Missing 35% of force limit is huge difference by itself as it doesn't stop player conquering smaller neighbours as vanilla does and that's very important to stop players snowballing. Not saying to increase it to 50% but +-25% with related eco bonuses to support bigger armies sounds imho better.

My experience regarding aggressiveness was really good in first 10 years, saw a lot of action around (Portugal took Granada and part of North Africa, Muscovy steamrolled Novgorod, Hungary conquered most of Balkans except Kebabland..). But it somewhat stopped after that. Portugal didn't acquire any other provinces in Africa. Same for Cas+Ara combo. Muscovy didn't overrun steps as it should and so on. Basically it became somewhat stale. But I finished my France run in 1500 exactly so maybe not enough time for AI empires to grow properly. Will try another run to see. First run was longer as Gotland, but only H and you mentioned somewhere that aggressiveness scales with difficulty so I didn't pay too much attention to provide proper info.

Just to clarify, Xorme was too much for me and I'm not saying you should follow it. Ferrara taking BYZ in 10 years was the last drop for me. Tried several runs and AI pretty much take everything it can which leads to big countries being all over the map with almost no regard to claims or distances if costal. I played Xorme with Ante bellum so maybe it's due mod combination, not sure, not important as I'm not trying to compare you two, just used it to explain why I feel aggressiveness is not as high as you may think. However, what I liked was longer wars. I believe the length of war was modified to keep war enthusiasm high for longer which meant wars were more costly, especially for player without bonuses. It changed the dynamic a little bit and in a good way, wars felt really intense with many battles and also risky as it prolonged the time rivals could attack you in moment of weakness. But I'm unsure if the effect would be the same without heavy AI bonuses Xorme provides so just an idea for you :) Since the goal is to make undecisive/balanced wars last longer and prevent AI from accepting peace so easily but at the same time not annoy players when easily winning I would somewhat increase the effect of occupied territory/capital (hope it is possible).

Originally posted by Deathcarrier:

Your quick reply is very appreciated ;) I should have asked the first time to be sure - is enabling all difficulty settings (scaling, deving etc.) the right way to play your mod? Do all of these settings increase AI efficiency? My info is based on VH+lucky nations with all options enabled.

VH + lucky nations with everything enabled is the hardest settings the mod can offer at the moment. AI devign is the same Auto Dev but for AI, If AI is at monarch point cap it will dev the cheapest province, spending mana. On VH it might boost the AI dev by 10% may be more.
I will probably make dificulty scaling more custumazible in the future tho.

Regarding reasons for peace, it was in the mod but specifically for Hard and VH. I've disabled it for the 1.34 patch, for pretty much the same reasons you've mentioned. Might revist it.

France is much stronger in the mod as well, end node in Bordeaux makes a big difference even in eraly game. The goal was to make AI France a larger threat on similar level with the Ottomans to make Europe more dynamic. Should be an easy start even on VH, no surprise there.

Hordes get new estates and are able to slow down Muscovy quite a bit. Some places in Africa are very hard to expand into, especially the areas that contain gold, as AI devs gold in the mod. Kilwa usually consolidates it's trade node and just gets extremely wealthy.

I started VH+lucky+all options enabled as SWI yesterday. But again, I already doubled my size in 10 years and would continue easily, unfortunately all my mission claims are HAB or free cities so I have to wait. To my amazement I could ally FRA (barely but it counts) which will hopefully boost my chances to crush HAB eventually once TUR will try to conquer HUN.

However, I plan to keep playing SWI run for longer to see lategame and if you are interested I can provide my long game experience.

Difficulty scaling (via event I presume) would be amazing, every man to his taste is always welcomed. Playing beforementioned France would probably be possible even with Xorme +50% force limit, manpower and manpower recovery bonuses while starting as small nation would still be possible and switch to hardcore bonuses later once player blob and feel no challenge. Or you can keep age scaling just make choices to make it more significant, e.g. +15% force limit and manpower per each age to keep AI somewhat on par with player. Ofc it's not only about army but also economy to support it, but it's the easiest to explain.

Originally posted by Deathcarrier:

I started VH+lucky+all options enabled as SWI yesterday. But again, I already doubled my size in 10 years and would continue easily, unfortunately all my mission claims are HAB or free cities so I have to wait. To my amazement I could ally FRA (barely but it counts) which will hopefully boost my chances to crush HAB eventually once TUR will try to conquer HUN.

However, I plan to keep playing SWI run for longer to see lategame and if you are interested I can provide my long game experience.

Difficulty scaling (via event I presume) would be amazing, every man to his taste is always welcomed. Playing beforementioned France would probably be possible even with Xorme +50% force limit, manpower and manpower recovery bonuses while starting as small nation would still be possible and switch to hardcore bonuses later once player blob and feel no challenge. Or you can keep age scaling just make choices to make it more significant, e.g. +15% force limit and manpower per each age to keep AI somewhat on par with player. Ofc it's not only about army but also economy to support it, but it's the easiest to explain.

Most small tags are sitting at a half force limit in early game, I don't think that even slapping 50% FL would help in this case, it’s more of an AI budgeting issue. As you can just quickly occupy AI's like that and prevent them from building more troops. This is what makes early game significantly easier imo.

Altho the game changes quite a bit over time in this regard. As AI is much more efficient in its economy and it will min max estates to a much larger degree than in a base game. Giving AI too much force limit in mid late game can turn the game into a chore. As every war would be a slog fest with countless armies running around. Before the nerfs to force limit in the mod, some AI's were able to get to 2+mill force limit on VH.
As the concept of it might sound fun at first, in practice I feel like most ppl will burn out after a short time. Even in the current state of balance in the mod I feel like reducing force limit numbers is the way to go. For example replacing flat force limit from regiment camp with province force limit modifier. Any thoughts and opinions on that?


I can make 3 options for difficulty scaling, basically easy, normal and hard. Easy would contain only small eco/mana bonuses, and normal and hard would add FL bonuses.

Well that's why I said I'm not talking about FL, but eco bonuses to support that extra FL :) I disagree with extra FL not helping with easy starts. As far as I know bonuses count from the start, thus for example as an OPM you can't snipe another OPM alone. And if you try and go over your FL, by the time you have enough troops you face not only 1 OPM but it"s allies, each of them strong as you or even stronger. Similarly even if you pick somewhat stronger nation, in many cases you are not strong enough to expand well on your own and by the time you get enough favors to call allies the same applies to your targets. So basically it's much more game of diplomacy, strategy and timing as it should be rather than just waiting for AE to go down so I can steamroll another poor AI soul in your neighborhood.

However, I'm not stupid to push my view on everyone so options for difficulty would be great. I would even propose to shift all difficulties by -1; that is make harder AI bonuses for VH (similar to vanilla VH for example) and your VH setting would apply to hard, former hard to normal etc. I don't believe anyone plays very easy so you can scratch that one with no remorse. Call me stupid if you wish, but your mod is called Difficulty & AI, so VH should be really difficult and challenging :)

As I didn't play previous versions I can't reliably comment on that question of yours. But I would say people trying mods are usually tired of standard games and WC. Hell, people who made WC usually complain about being it a chore even on normal vanilla so take that into consideration. Not sure about the exact statistics but it's well reported that most games ends way before end game and it's obvious. If you became too strong, it's not fun but chore anyway so unless you wish to complete achievements you just stop. Since achievements are out of the question with mods, you only have the challenge part and feeling of accomplishment when beating an obstacle. That's why Xorme is very popular - people wish to have extreme challenge. I WANT to play France, TUR, Mos etc. and still feel I have to work for my victories, but even you admitted France is easy on VH. If player doesn't like big enemy armies, he/she should not play VH. Simple as that. Pretty much every game on the hardest option is close to chore as you have to know exactly what you are doing, min max , hit extreme timings and so on.

Just in case you meant the FL reduction just as overal reduction so everyone has less troops I'm for it. Just unsure how you want to do it. Less troops in middle and late game sounds great, but you need to keep early game working, especially when lower difficulties so OPM have few thousand at least. What came to my mind immediately is scaling debuff. Imagine this - over time every nation get debuff to FL and related stuff (manpower, regiment cost and so on) so the army growth is slowed down. Ideally debuff scale yearly if possible so it's as smooth as possible. Let's say the game timeline is almost 400 years and you want to cut armies in half - 0,25% yearly means almost 100% debuff in total when game ends. If this would be possible, I would even have solution to both issues we are discussing. Make separate debuffs rate for player and AI so player can choose. Let's say I want challenge and I'm playing strong nation that can expand rapidly, I would pick faster debuff rate and that would solve everything. Or if you don't like giving AI debuff, keep everything the same way it is now, just give players option to apply debuff of different strength on themself making the game harder. The more I think about it this last paragraph is exactly what I would like to have. You wouldn't have to increase AI size, just give us option to limit our power if we would like to.

Originally posted by Deathcarrier:

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I was talking about general reduction of force limits across the game in the most seamless way possible. Like replacing Flat FL from buildings with FL modifiers, so these buildings would be worth only in high Dev provinces.

I think the mod is in a good spot when it comes to difficulty as long as you play a Minor nation or you are somehow willing to limit yoursel. But if you want to play a Major nation the challenge might not be there, you have good point here.
As I mentioned before, I would add more options for scaling Difficulty including one option with starting FL bonuses.

I would say changing how FL from buildings works can achieve what you want, but it will change the dynamic little bit so you have to take it into consideration. It would make playing tall for obvious reasons stronger while playing low dev nations harder. I mostly prioritise economy and manpower so I don't build FL buildings much so I don't really care. However, I believe people mostly do the same as I do so weakening FL building would be much worse for AI than us players who barely use them.

Just to satisfy my curiosity - is the idea with scaling yearly debuff possible? I have zero modding experience but I'm still surprised what people can sometimes do in EU4 or CK3. It's crazy how you and others are able to improve on former stuff and even create new mechanics altogether.

Originally posted by Deathcarrier:

Just to satisfy my curiosity - is the idea with scaling yearly debuff possible? I have zero modding experience but I'm still surprised what people can sometimes do in EU4 or CK3. It's crazy how you and others are able to improve on former stuff and even create new mechanics altogether.

It is possible, and there is multiple ways to do it.

Hey man, just wanted to say that once new DLC drops, I will wait and be looking every day for your update before installing EU4 again as your mod is the only one I ever used for more than a single run (unless I play Anbennar) and it provides much better challenge. It's nice to see you are still keeping it up, wish you all the best!